which one's commlink couldn't I find?

Edit: I am going to amend the double post I made to send a warning to Amy about if she has to move hit the one whose commlink I can't get.

I will continue the MARKing process, starting with the one officer's commlink who I do have.

"Damn the torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead!" -Admiral David Farragut, First Admiral in U.S. Naval History.

The one who spoke directly to Amy is the one you can't find.

Are you hopping to the local grid first?

Yes, but something just dawned on me. Gonna throw it out IC

"Also - what is Grease doing? (Besides hiding in his car filming?)"

And trying to avoid being on the 11 o'clock news?

I am monitoring the situation. I considered jumping into RHex, but that limits my situational awareness (plus I can do it as a simple action since he's connected via my RCC).

That's it for now; I will see how the situation develops and react appropriately. It may be getting my car over to Amy, Overkill, and the two civilians and booking it out of there; it could be lighting up the drones with RHex. TBD!

-DrZ

Overkill Hack on the fly to the local grid
14d6.hits(5)=3

Grid
4d6.hits(5)=2

OS=2

Hack on the Fly to put a mark on officer's commlink
16d6.hits(5)=9 reduced to 6 by limit

Resist
8d6.hits(5)=2

One Mark on - OS=4

So, of your 6 actions phases before the attack by Amy:

4 Matrix Perception Checks
2 Hack on the Fly attempts

I'll give you one more action, and then the crap is going to hit the fan.

I suppose I should use my last action to set for running silent, and ready my Deck for the Attack.


A-6, S-5, D-3, F-5
Programs: Signal Scrub, Hammer, Decryption

Edit: can I also start moving towards Amy's position, as I am still in AR?

Decryption wouldn't be a bad choice since you can't spot the other commlink. +1 to damage is like three extra dice.

K, this is bugging me, and I have a question that I need to get out. A short while ago, when Grease asked me to contact the Johnson, he said to "Presume communications were being monitored." and hasn't said anything since to the team.

Now, Drave has had our whole team's commlinks slaved to his Cyberdeck so that he could perform Overwatch on them back since we first learned we were being followed. If someone was monitoring our team's comms; wouldn't he have known about it?

I only ask because if someone has been monitoring our comms, (and somehow Overkill didn't realize it...) then Amy and Overkill just broadcasted their plans to the other side. And it might be wise for me to warn her with that last act before the drek hits the fan.

The answer is probably.

Basically in order for someone to do this, they would have to have used Matrix Perception to find one of your commlink icons in an opposed test against your Int+Sleaze (which you would not know if they were attempting or succeeded).

Then, they would have to Hack on the Fly to put a Mark on the commlink (which you wouldn't know unless they failed) , and then they would have had to use the Snoop action (which you wouldn't know unless they failed.)

Now, theoretically, if you were making Matrix Perception tests all the time on your own stuff to see if anyone else's Mark showed up, then you would spot the Mark, and that would at least let you know you were vulnerable. If, however, you failed, then you would not see the Mark, and would have no idea.

Way back (I don't know, about 30 pages ago OOC, I think) Jack had suggested that you keep an eye on the stuff just to make sure no one was snooping, and your character isn't stupid, so I don't think there is a problem with your character periodically checking his stuff even if you as the player didn't tell me to, and I've been keeping that in mind.

So, for right now, you as a player know that I have been making Matrix Perception tests for Overkill periodically to keep an eye on his stuff, and as of yet, he hasn't seen any Marks on it. That doesn't mean he didn't fail the rolls - but mathematically it is unlikely that he would do so - so it is a good bet no one is snooping on you via the Matrix.

Ok, the balloon is going up, as it were.

Here's what we've got:

Before combat starts, before anyone has a chance to do anything, Amy will communicate with her spirits. The Lone Star guys and drones have no way of knowing that this is/will be happening, so I'm going to say that this is before we roll for initiative.

Next, - surprise. I am giving the runners the +3 Alerted bonus, but neither side gets the Ambush bonus. With this many things to roll for, I'm just going to roll physical dice at my table and enter the initiative results, as copying and pasting this many is far to much of a pain. I'm going to give the initiative score, plus whether or not the character is surprised. If they ARE surprised, I'm going to have the 10 points subtracted already.


IP 1
Spirit of Man 25- Materializes
Amy 24 - cast Ball Lightning (F4, DP: 12 dice, drain 3S on 13 dice) on the drone#1 and yell: "Help me save Chomsky! Stop the cops, there's only two of them!"
Rigger 24
Drone#4 19 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Grease 20 - Jump into Rhex, Active Sensor Test
Air Spirit 19 - Materializes
Lone Star officer #2 17
Overkill 16 -
Drone#2 5-unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Drone#1 4 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Drone#3 14 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Chomsky - 1 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Lone Star officer #1 (with marked commlink) 1 - unable to take any offensive action as he is surprised
Greeley - 0

I need to know what Grease and Overkill are doing on the first IP.

Also, for the drones, although they are unable to act offensively on their own (i.e. on Auto Pilot independent of the rigger), they will be able to attack when controlled either remotely or jumped into by the Rigger, as he was not surprised.

Just so we have an idea, Amy, the two officers, Chomsky and Greeley are in the parking lot. Grease is also in the parking lot, in his car - about 50 meters away. Overkill is trying to push through the throng of people to get near them, but is still at least 50-60 meters from them.

To clarify, IC that was Grease' assumption. he (and frankly, I) don't know that much about how the Matrix works, and presumes that if the cops are there, they can monitor our communications (because they're "the man").

If it is common knowledge that our communications are 100% secure, then you can assume that Grease was just being dramatic

-DrZ

On 20, Simple Action 1: Jump into RHex
Simple Action 2: Active Sensor test on closest rotodrone (assuming Amy doesn't blow it up; I presume I can switch targets if that's the case?)

Perception 4 + Intuition 3 - Drone (3 on signature table) = 4 dice, limited by RHex's sensor rating [3]. I am not sure if they get a defense roll, as they would need to be sneaking or running infiltration, and my impression is they're right above the crowd.

I will post IC once my turn is up (i.e. after Amy posts her spell).

I will target a drone attacking the party (as opposed to the closest) if that happens before I get to go.

Thanks,
-DrZ

I believe the errata clarified that the drone would resist with Pilot + [Model] Evasion if the drone is operating independently. I don't think it necessarily matters if it is visible or not, it's more of a Maneuvering/ECM sort of thing. With that said, I wouldn't think Evasion would be all that highly prioritized (probably be 4th or 5th in order of importance) for a riot control drone setup.

I think you get +2 to the test if you're in Hot-Sim.

For my own sanity (and sake of keeping the game moving) I will post all the combats the way I've been doing previously - you tell me what you are doing OOC, and I roll OOC, and then once all actions have been accounted for OOC, I make one post IC.

Now, if there is something really cool you want to do, then write it up OOC and I'll cut and paste it into my IC post. Otherwise I think it breaks up the continuity too much. (Chrome already PM'd me Amy's action)

ETA - yes, you can switch targets if Amy blows it up.

ETA#2 - just waiting on Overkill, and we can get this one going.

What a huge fight. You might want to roll initiative for Chomsky and Greeley as well though. It might matter what they do and when they do it. I assume it might just be to drop prone if bullets start flying, but who knows.

Done and added into it the initiative order.

Btw, just to be fair and so there are no surprises, what Amy is doing is definitely in character for her, but she is putting a giant "Shoot Me" sign over her head.

The spell (assuming people can make the necessary 2 hits on a Perception test) marks her out as a hostile mage, and very bulletworthy.

Yuuup just like you said. I'm well aware.

Better her than anyone else, in her mind.

Sure thing. I will evaluate what I want to do for my 2nd action once I see how this round sorts out...
-DrZ

Y'all are inspiring me to take this troll on. Of course, given the timeline issues, y'all will almost certainly be done and/or in the middle of everything before I even get to the Hotel.

It occurs to me that we might as well get all of the rolls out of the way up until Overkill goes, as he gets to see what happens ahead of him before he decides to act.

IP 1
Spirit of Man 25- Materializes
Amy 24 - cast Ball Lightning (F4, DP: 12 dice, drain 3S on 13 dice) on the drone#1 and yell: "Help me save Chomsky! Stop the cops, there's only two of them!"
Rigger 24 - shoot Spirit of Man
Drone#4 19 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Grease 20 - Jump into Rhex, Active Sensor Test
Air Spirit 19 - Materializes
Lone Star officer #2 17 - Perception test, Shoot Amy
Overkill 16 -
Drone#3 14 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Drone#2 5-unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Drone#1 4 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Chomsky - 1 - unable to take any offensive action as it is surprised
Lone Star officer #1 (with marked commlink) 1 - unable to take any offensive action as he is surprised
Greeley - 0

Amy's spell:
12d6.hits(5)=4

Resist Drain
13d6.hits(5)=5 - No drain

So, it is a 4DV base damage, +1 DV since you beat the threshold of 3 by 1 hit, so 5DV with an AP of 4
Drone resists with Body of 4, Armor of 4, -4 for AP
4d6.hits(5)=2

So it takes 2 points of physical damage, and an additional 1 point of Matrix Damage due to secondary effects.

Next up is the Rigger, who uses a Control Device action to fire all of his drones at the Spirit of Man (Since he goes basically simultaneously with Amy, we'll assume he is too late to have the drones shoot at her)
Control Device to fire all 4 drones, each one using a Full Auto Simple action. (6 rounds fired)

He rolls 11 dice, no penalty for recoil, no penalty for light (due to Low Light), Medium Range (compensated for), +2 dice for Hot Sim, -2 for noise from the Warrens, -3 from distance, with the ability to cancel out 4 points of that noise, for a total of 10 dice.

10d6.hits (5)=2, 10d6.hits (5)=2, 10d6.hits (5)=3, 10d6.hits (5)=1

Base Damage is 10P w/a 2AP, loading Explosive Rounds, making it 11P 3AP

Spirit Dodges
7 Reaction + 6 Intuition, -5 dice for the Full Auto leaves 8 to dodge

8d6.hits(5)=3, 8d6.hits(5)=3, 8d6.hits(5)=3, 8d6.hits(5)=4

The dice are on your side, at least for now, gentleman

Next up is Grease, he jumps into Rhex, then does his Sensor Test:
Perception 4 + Intuition 3 - Drone (3 on signature table) = 4 dice, limited by RHex's sensor rating [3]

You get a +2 dice for Hot Sim, and your Sensor limit is raised to 5 (for being jumped in)

6d6.hits(5)=1

So you do have a Sensor Lock on the Drone, which will give it a -1 penalty to its defense test should you shoot at it.

Next, the spirit of Air Materializes

Next Officer #2 goes
Perception Test
10d6.hits (5)=2

BARELY gets enough hits to spot Amy casting the spell

Officer #2 quickdraws his weapon
15d6.hits(5)=7

and fires a single round out of it.

14d6.hits(5)=3

I literally just laughed out loud at how terrible these guys roll to actually hit anything

Amy has to decide whether or not to use an interrupt action before I can go any further.

Oops!

I forgot to add the Smartlink bonus to the Rigger's rolls.

2d6.hits(5)=1, 2d6.hits(5)=1, 2d6.hits(5)=0, 2d6.hits(5)=1

And your luck continues to hold - since now his hits are:

3
3
3
2

And the spirit's dodges were

3
3
3
4

So the spirit got 3 grazing hits and a miss

There is definitely something to be said for one or more of you to play the lottery tonight

Uh.. 5 - 2 = 3. It takes 3 boxes of damage.

Amy assumes that she will be getting fired at quite a lot this round, so she goes on Full Defense for the rest of the round, and she now has a dice pool of 18 (Rea 6 + Int 5 + Combat Sense 1 + Willpower 6) to defend.

Also, I have to say, I didn't expect the policemen to have such huge dice pools of perception and pistol. Scary!!

Sorry for the delay, had a Barbeque at Grandma's house today.

So here is my question:

Going to start with one of 2 actions, (Free action to switch Decryption to Fork, Hack on the Fly to put a MARK on each of the Vehicles) or (Dataspike Officer #2's commlink), Now the question is, will Dataspiking the cop's commlink alert all of them to my presence or just the officer in question?

Just trying to decide if I should MARK the Vehicles first and then launch my attack on the links. Probably the linbk first, I just don't want all of them to zero in on me and go full defense before I can nail a few marks on em. I imagine the Vehicles might be tougher to knock out...

I don't think they are policemen... would you show up to rest the speaker at a rally with hundreds of people at it with only 2 cars and a single drone squadron? I have seen 3 times as many cops show up to a simple traffic stop...

Was the name on the Warrant ever communicated to us?

You can't Data Spike Officer#2's commlink - you can't see the icon. I assume you mean Officer#1?

Whatever you Data Spike will alert the owner that he is under attack. At that point, he would need to spot you, and then communicate to the others.

Just let me know what it is you want to do.

You HOPE they aren't policeman

Well... going big with personnel at the beginning might actually increase the odds of a riot.

Yeah I meant #1, and it will be awfully hard to communicate that he is being attacked to his teammates if his commlink is sizzling chunk of fused composites

So I will start with the Dataspike on Officer #1's commlink

That too

Christ on a crutch!

I'm apparently doomed to not be able to get the frigging attack against the spirit right!

I forgot that each successive attack made against the spirit reduces its dice pool by 1.

So, removing dice from right to left (as I've been doing), the attacks were:

3
3
3
2

And the Defense tests are now:

3
2
1
3

So:
Grazing Hit
12DV AP3
13DV AP3
Miss

Spirit Resists:

Body 6, + Armor 7
13d6.hits(5)=4, +4 successes from the Immunity to Normal weapons, spirit takes 4 Damage

Body 6, + Armor 7
13d6.hits(5)=5 +4 successes from the Immunity to Normal weapons, spirit takes 4 Damage

Continuing on with the round, Amy rolls to dodge:

18d6.hits(5)=2

Wow.

So, Base DV is 8P 1 AP, Ex Ammo makes it 9P 2 AP, 1 net hit makes it 10P 2AP

Amy resists:

Body 3, +2 dice to resist damage, 9armor reduced to 7, so 12 dice
12d6.hits(5)=2

So Amy takes 8 boxes of Physical Damage, which is above her Physical Limit, and so is knocked to the ground by the shot.

Overkill - are you still intending to Data Spike the Commlink? Or did you want to try and Data Spike one of the Drones?

Seeing Amy taking such heavy fire, I will take the Dataspike at the Drones; which I will drop Decryption for Fork and hit 2 of them.

Well all her luck had to run out at some point. This one hurts a lot... literally.

A-6, S-5, D-3, F-5
Programs: Signal Scrub, Hammer, Fork

So,

Cybercombat 6, Logic 8, Noise is 2 for Warrens, 1 for distance, negated by Signal Scrub and DataJack, so 14 dice:

14d6.hits(5)=9 Nice Roll! Reduced to 6 by your limit.

Drones Resist with Int + Firewall
11d6.hits(5)=4, 11d6.hits(5)=2

So, first Drone has to resist 10 DV of Matrix Damage, and the other one has to resist 12 DV of Matrix Damage

Here are there resistance:
6d6.hits (5)=1, 6d6.hits (5)=1

Drone #1 takes 9 DV, and with the hit from the ball lighting, puts it over the top, and the second one takes 11 DV - so both are dropped by the one attack!

Wow! Amazing action, this is huge!

As a note, it was drone 1 and 3, not 2 and 3, my bad.

Finishing up the round:

Drone#2 5 - does nothing

Drone#1 4 - Bricked

Drone#3 14 - Bricked

Chomsky - 1 - knocks Greeley to the ground

Lone Star officer #1 (with marked commlink) 1 draws his pistol

Greeley - 0 no action

IC post to follow later tonight or early tomorrow - next IP

IP 2
Rigger 14
Spirit of Man 12
Grease 10 - Jump into Rhex, Active Sensor Test
Drone#4 9
Air Spirit 8
Lone Star officer #2 7
Overkill 6
Amy 2

Start thinking about your actions now

Need a quick status update on the crowd, Lone Star, and drone's actions thusfar.

Would it take me the whole IP to find the Icon of Officer #1's Pistol? Or would it be easy as it is likely slaved to the link. (or at least connected to the same PAN.)

Nice!!!

Uh... considering how much you just smoked those two drones, you might want to brick the other one you've spotted. They've got ARs and stuff.

Oh crap, they are using Explosive Ammo...

Did OK brick the one I was targeting?

-DrZ

Good point; but haven't I spotted them all? Also, could I Fork a Dataspike at the commlink and Drone at the same time?

I think you only spotted 3 of 4. My mistake, I forgot the flurry of actions. Yeah, you could DS both of them, but the commlink may have a higher resist profile.

Lots of questions:

1) The crowd is mostly now screaming and surging toward the exits (probably going to be a lot of injuries there, potentially a fatality or two).
2) Yes, Overkill bricked the one you were targeting (it was the closest drone to Amy)
3) Matrix Perception is a Complex Action, so to find his pistol would take the whole IP
4) You could use Fork to Data Spike any two devices you've already spotted.
5) Yes you have spotted all 4 drones (well, now two drones) - you originally spotted 3 of them, but in your 6 actions before the combat began, your first Matrix Perception spotted the 4th.
6) The name on the warrant was Judge Harvey Browne

And at this point; honestly, is someone not going to be able to get a call through in all this chaos... I should probably move on from the whole comm-blocking idea and worry about the targets threatening our people here and now.

And would it take me an IP to actually see the Icon of #1's pistol?

If I can see it, I will make a Forked Dataspike at the Drone I have spotted and Officer #1's Pistol.

ETA: Sorry. Was typing this and missed the answer from above.

Check the post before the one you posted.

- It will take you an IP to spot the Pistol
- You have spotted both remaining drones

In an IP, you can perform:

1 Free Action and

1 Complex or 2 Simple Actions

Your Complex Action is to make a Matrix Perception test and spot it.

At that point, you only have Free Action, and Data Spike is also a Complex Action, so you can't do it until the next IP.

So it really is EITHER try and spot the gun OR Data Spike the two Drones.

I remember; that was the same name as the Major that Ramirez said was Head of Homicide. I think he said he could be connected, probably dirty...(Not sure if the Judge and the Major are related, have the same name, or this is some kind of forgery...)

And in that case; I will make a Forked Dataspike against the other 2 Drones.

It IS interesting that the warrant (which is supposed to be signed by a judge) seems to have the same name as a Major in Homicide

Well, assuming you are all alive at the end of this, anyway.